Panel wants to hear Brogan on severance

FAU official's answers fail to placate legislators

TALLAHASSEE — An angry state legislative committee wants answers to why Florida Atlantic University President Frank Brogan gave a former fundraiser more than $577,000 in severance pay - and they plan to ask Brogan directly.

The decision to invite the former lieutenant governor to testify came after members of the joint House-Senate Legislative Auditing Committee on Monday tried unsuccessfully to get an explanation out of Tom Barlow, the school's vice president of governmental relations.

"The answer you're giving us is that you don't know," Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Parkland, told Barlow. "Going round and round with a person who doesn't know isn't going to get us anywhere."

Rep. Susan Bucher, D-West Palm Beach, was more blunt.

"I'm offended President Brogan is not here with us today," she said. "This is the people's university, it's the people's money and the people have a right to know why."

The severance package for Lawrence Davenport was one of 22 problems highlighted in a critical state report issued by the Auditor General's Office in early November. The audit also found that cell-phone and credit-card usage by university employees were not being properly monitored and that hundreds of doses of prescription drugs were unaccounted for by the university's pharmacy.

"If anything is missing [from the pharmacy], it would be impossible to tie down responsibility," Ted Sauerbeck, a state auditor, told committee members.

Several legislators asked Barlow why the school hadn't contacted law enforcement or state regulatory authorities to report the discrepancies in the drug inventory.

"Someone could go to jail for this," said Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Valrico, after Barlow said he could not tell her what kind of drugs were involved. "If you work in Walgreens, you don't get to have 750 pieces of drugs missing. How did they go missing? You have a duty to find that out."

She called Barlow's testimony "disrespectful" and questioned whether he had even read the 23-page audit.

In a telephone interview Monday evening, Ken Jessel, FAU vice president for financial affairs, said a review by the school showed that most of the discrepancies were because of miscoding of the drugs, only two of which are considered controlled substances, and involved 45 pills. As a result of the audit, however, "we have fully revamped our procedures for how we account for all of these drugs, which are held in a locked and secure area."

But most of the committee's fury centered on the Davenport severance package, which Storms called "offensive" and Bucher labeled "the monster" in the audit.

Davenport resigned as the vice president of advancement in March. Brogan later cited differences in leadership philosophy and friction with the FAU Foundation, the university's fundraising arm, but has provided no specific documentation to the auditors or the legislative auditing committee.

"What did this guy have on the university that the president obviously thought was more difficult than to deal with what you have to deal with now and would generate more bad publicity than what you've received already?" Bucher asked.

Barlow would say only that Brogan felt it would be better to pay off Davenport and have him leave rather than going through a court battle.

"Dr. Davenport was going to pursue an option of wrongful termination which would have wound up in federal court ... the president decided to avoid expensive litigation," he said, but offered no further explanation.

FAU General Counsel David Kian, reached Monday evening, said he or Brogan would be willing to meet with legislators and give a more detailed explanation. He said Davenport threatened legal action and the university thinks he may have sued based on age or racial discrimination. Davenport is black and was 62 when he left the university.

The money to pay Davenport came from vending machine revenues, creating a $68,272 shortfall in the concessions budget for 2006-07.

"It was concession money, not tax money," said Barlow, who said that the university plans to adhere to all the recommendations made in the audit.

Rep. Carl Domino, R-Jupiter, the committee chairman, said Brogan would be invited to testify in the coming months, but no date has yet been set.